Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

Politics is the art of the possible.

Every country has the government it deserves.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.